Francesca
Paula
It started with the book, the book of the harem girls. One of the many things I do for my employer is search the literature, sift it, obtain for him the best items. He prefers live women, of course, but well-done representations interest him as well.
He thought this book was well done. I spoke to the photographer, Joseph Martinez, on the phone myself. My predecessor had trained me to see to every detail.
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Joe pushed the end call button and looked thoughtfully at his phone for a long time. There were not many copies of the book that had been the topic of this call. Its subject matter was quite graphic, quite brutal. He had taken hundreds of photos and included twenty-five in the final product, but those twenty-five were among his best work. He’d captured light and shadow, despair and triumph, winner and loser. Paula stretched on the bed.
“Who was that?” she asked sleepily.
“A woman,” Joe said. Her name didn’t matter. Neither did the name of the man she worked for. Both were unfamiliar, but as the caller knew of the book, he believed that she told the truth when she spoke of her employer’s wealth. He thumbed to his banking app. As the caller had said, a ten-thousand dollar good-faith payment had been deposited, no strings attached. Money just to consider the proposal. He hadn’t given out his account information; the fact that it had been accessed so easily added to the veracity of the call. Of course, it was not that Paula needed the money - it was more the style of the matter that he thought might interest her.
“A woman,” he continued, “who represents a very wealthy man.”
“What did she want?” Paula rolled to her side and sat up. Joe thought that sometimes when she had no make-up, her hair disheveled from sleep, was when she was the most beautiful.
He told her. He was right. As he spoke, her eyes went from sleepy to sultry. Her nipples stiffened, She opened her thighs and leaned back on her hands.
“Fuck me,” she breathed when he finished, but that was more to speak the words, to add their snap to her obvious desire. He sank his cock into her.
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I visited Francesca in her quarters. She has seen the book, of course. She knew of the woman, Paula Antoni, from her public life, a famous model. I explain to her what he wanted. Francesca is naturally a quiet woman. I recall, when I was still an assistant, when she won her place against a now-forgotten blonde, that it was the other woman who cursed and taunted her, called her cxnt and whore, until Francesca broke her and forced her submission. Now, she asked a few questions, good ones. Only her eyes betrayed her emotions. They glittered. Make no mistake, the panther is also quiet.
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The Roman arena in Pula, Croatia, is one of the best preserved. Vespasian had it built in the first century, when the seaport was called Pietas Julia. It hosted gladiatorial combat until the fifth century. Today, it is often used for concerts, with seating viable for five thousand. Therefore, it is available for private rental, if one can afford it. My employer can, easily. With a few simple half-truths, security was also arranged and guaranteed. Prying eyes would be nowhere near.
I flew to Pula a week early, as did Joseph Martinez. While he was known for his still photography, he also knew film-making well. My instinct was that he would create a masterpiece, and so I entrusted it to him. My employer did not care for exclusivity, if others saw the product as well. Joseph could profit handsomely from it.
Lights were positioned and tested, repositioned and tested again. The emperor’s box was fashioned as it would have appeared then, historically accurately, I can assure you. Costumes were finalized. Accessories, shall we call them, were checked and confirmed. Paula Antoni and Francesca arrived a few days early, time to allow any jet lag to fade. Each had a private villa on the shore, a mile apart.
At midnight, the ancient arena would host its first gladiatrix fight in over eighteen hundred years. The sand of its floor was not the sand into which blood soaked then, most likely, although who could say for sure if some grains remained, or had traveled away and returned. It is actually quite simple to reverse time, for entertainment purposes.